Next military historian Stephen Harding recalls the death of the last american killed in combat in world war ii. [inaudible conversations] hello everybody, welcome tonight. This is politics and prose at busboys and poets. I am here hosting the event with Stephen Harding and his book last to die. I want to make a short note. Tonight we have cspan live here filming the event so we will have them here. Also just to make you aware we have politics and prose are sponsoring this event. We are in three new busboys locations. We host events here and we are here at the tacoma location and also at the birkeland location so you can see us there as well. One of the great benefit to being here you can order food throughout the event and love to have you do that. You can purchase the book at the front of the store. As i mentioned tonight we have Stephen Harding here. World war ii in japan officially ended in ceasefire but there were a few final moments the americans Stephen Harding chronicles tony marsh and an american soldier and the side of the spinal flight to japan japan. The tale is impressing and inspiring and its hard in his determination to tell it. While he expresses a commitment as a journalist and historian and not emotionally and task to the individual stories to be told he admits his commercial personal connection with tony. Harding is wellsuited to show his liking of patriotism. Stephen harding so they see out their bakeries books including the bestseller the last battle. He is a longtime journalist specializing in military affairs for two decades use on the staff of soldiers the official magazine of the u. S. Army reporting from Northern Ireland israel egypt new zealand bosnia kuwait and iraq. He is the editorinchief of military history magazine and his contributions on the defense topics in aviation military and airtime history have appeared in the San Francisco chronicle and the smithsonian world war ii defense weekly and air enthusiasts. He currently lives in northern virginia. And without further ado, Stephen Harding. [applause] while that was impressive. I want to thank davis for that nice introduction and of course when im having me here tonight. I dont know how much you know about the story that makes up last to die. I want to give you a brief overview of that and then i will tell you a few things about how i brought the story together. In a nutshell, this book is the story of the last american killed in combat in world war ii his name was tony marciano. He was from pottstown pennsylvania and a week passed his 20th birthday. He was in an obscure american bomber called the b32 dominator flying over tokyo on august 18 of 1945 just over 70 years ago when the aircraft was attacked by japanese fighters and tony died and two other people on the plane were seriously wounded. Tonys death was a tragedy obviously for his family and for the country as a whole but it would bend a little more than a footnote to history except the fact that his death could very well have brought about the prolining prolonging world war ii a war that most people assumed authority over. A little background. I first heard tony marcions story 30 years ago. I was working in san diego as a matter of fact and i cowrote a book on this obscure airplane that i mentioned earlier to the 32 bomber. The b32 was built about the same time as the 829. The difference was there were several thousand b29s build and only 118 b32 dominators. The reason for that the b32 was a good airplane when it worked. It often did not work. It had issues such as engine fires, landing gear that wouldnt come down when it was supposed about when it worked it was certainly comparable to the b29. Only a handful of b32s made it to the pacific and literally in the last weeks of world war ii. When i was writing this book i heard the story about this young guy from pennsylvania who was unfortunate enough to be the last guy killed in world war ii. I thought thats a great story and i really want to tell it so of course i waited 30 years to do that because life gets in the way. You have families. I did a lot of reporting in various parts of the world and finally a couple of years ago i thought this is the time to tell it because we were coming up on an diverse anniversary of end of the war. Most americans i think have a slightly incorrect view of how world war ii in the pacific ended. If i asked most of you when you thought djj was if you understood what dj day means you would probably say august 18, what every year you are in but thats not entirely accurate. World war ii ended on september 2, 1945 when they surrendered documents were signed by the japanese aboard the uss missouri. August 18 comes up in most peoples minds for august 15 and a lot of peoples minds because those two days are significant and they are dealt with in the book. If you remember on august 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima. Three days later august 9 on nagasaki. You would think watching two of the major cities in japan disappear beneath mushroom clouds would have prompted the japanese to end the war at that time. It didnt. There was a Strong Movement within the Senior Leadership of the Japanese Military government to continue the war not because the japanese thought they could actually win but because they thought if they inflict enough casualties on the allied forces they could win a negotiated settlement because if you remember of the pots dan conference the allies declared Unconditional Surrender to japan, no conditions that also these japanese diehards figure that if they cause enough trouble for the allied forces we would negotiate. Hera quito on the other hand saw somewhat differently. He had seen several hundred thousand people just vaporized not to mention the firebomb raids that we have been conducting for months before that create he like most knowledgeable japanese assumed that a Ground Invasion of japan was in the planning stations and it was. It was called operation downfall. It had two parts. It would have been the largest amphibious invasion in history and it would have been had it been successful disastrous for attacking the allies and defending the japanese. The casualty estimates among the allied invading troops americans australians breds were in a 100,000 and in terms of the japanese casualties the casualty rate it could have been in the millions because of the resistance that was offered. So hirikito decided hed go against traditions and the militarist in the 1930s were cynically manipulated to become a political concept rather than a cultural concept. They interpreted it as surrender was always shameful and never except the bull and japan would have to fight on until victory. Hirikito surprised surprised many the of the survivors by agreeing to the terms of the pots dan declaration. On august 14 he recorded an audio message that was to be broadcast the following day to the japanese people in which he announced his intention to surrender. Thats recording in the knowledge within the diehard militarist sections of the government and military triggered a palace coup on august 15. It was ultimately unsuccessful but for some number of hours the imperial palace complex in tokyo was in play. There were mutineers and troops. People were dying. A very senior general was shot and decapitated because he failed to go on with the coup plotters. Ultimately the japanese announced to the allies there except and of the pots dan declaration for surrender although in his broadcast hirikito never said the word surrender. He said we had to endure the endurable but he never said we are going to surrender. Two military organizations now come into play. They were to Imperial Japanese navy Fighter Squadrons. One was the 302nd Fighter Squadron outside of tokyo and the other was called via cusco which was south of tokyo in based in obama. These groups of aviators for very Different Reasons decided not to go along with the emperors order to lay down their arms and accept a ceasefire. The people at the 302nd were driven by the commander a captain named casano who was just a die hard rashida driven militarist. He was also undergoing a relapse of malaria said he wasnt thinking clearly but he infuses concept that we cannot surrender and weak will shame our emperor so his core group of Fighter Pilots who included some the best surviving Fighter Pilot japan had them they had huge surviving fighter planes decided they would not go along with the surrender and would attack any allied aircraft that showed up over japan. Down the road the mood was somewhat different. There were Fighter Pilots there and one of the bestknown japanese pilots of world war ii decided they would resist for Different Reasons. They side as a question of national sovereignty. Japan had not surrendered yet. No surrender had been signed so they saw it as a question of defending the sovereign airspace until the country surrendered so they also decided that they would attack any allied aircraft that they deemed hostile. The important point to members of oath of the atomic comics at that point in japan have been conducted by two aircraft. One of them but b29 on each occasion. To the japanese have b29 and b32 were identical. Four engine bombers, big tall tale so on august 16 general Douglas Macarthur who was the commander of allied forces in the southwest pacific and ultimately would become the Supreme Commander and occupied japan wanted to test the fidelity of the japanese to see if they really would follow on their agreement to surrender so on august 16 he sent for, b32s and other aircraft over different parts of the area around metropolitan tokyo to photograph airfields as part of the ceasefire Fighter Aircraft were supposed to have their propellers move so they couldnt fly. He wanted to see if that was happening. On august 16 for b32s cruise leisurely over tokyo and flew back to okinawa. On august 17 he decided to dispatch another four for a specific set of missions. These four aircraft encountered intense antiaircraft fire which sort of implies collusion between the gunners in the radar operators and more importantly they were attacked by japanese fighter planes. There were no casualties but some of the aircraft were damaged so they again fly back to okinawa and at this point Douglas Macarthur had a decision to make. Would this attack find that the japanese would renege on their agreement to surrender or was it the work of some diehards . He did something that military commanders have had to do throughout history. He had to make a hard decision to send people back into harms way to find out what would happen and really its that simple. So on august 18, 1945, for b32 dominators took off from an airfield on okinawa. They headed towards japan and these being b32s come about two hours into the flight to them had to abort because of mechanical difficulty so at that point the other two aircraft continued to fly towards japan which enriches back may not seem like the wisest command decision. When they arrived over tokyo they were taken under antiaircraft fire and they were at intensely attacked by japanese fighter planes. At this point, things went from bad to worse especially for tony marchione. Tony wanted to be a pilot like a lot of people and when he enlisted in the Army Air Force in november of 1943 his intent was to be a pilot. Unfortunately like many of us who wanted to be pilots it didnt work out so he was trained as an aerial gunner. When his crew he trained with the crew and they were supposed to go to italy to bomb the germans but at the last moment their crew was converted from a bombardment unit to an aerial reconnaissance unit. The same kind of pints and they were flying at the 24 liberator and they switch to the recognizance which was called in at seven great first they went to the philippines but by the time they got to okinawa there were very few japanese aircraft active anywhere except over japan so the need for aerial gunners had fallen off significantly. So tony and his fellow gunners were sort of dragon and into being photographers assistance. They would have load and unload the various cameras being used. On august 15, actually the 14th tony had volunteered for any recognizance flight over tokyo. The worst decision ever he ever made. The reason he volunteered is because as in the european theater house and you went home depended on the number of points you had. Youve got more points for flying over hostile territory which japan still technically was but everybody thought the war was going to and august 15 and 1st acceptance of this surrender conditions made it look like the war was going to be over so tony who really wanted to get home had volunteered for what he thought was going to be a fairly long but uninvolved mission. That didnt turn out to be the way it was and on august 17 when the b32s came back from that first contested raid, i can imagine he was really regretting the choice but by that point it was a done deal. On august 18 when these four b32s took off tony was working as an assistant to a photographer named joe look arrived from holyoke massachusetts. Tony was interested in cameras. They have sort of worked together couple of times. They were but they knew each other. There was another man from their unit because they were not in the same unit that operated these b32s. They were from a Reconnaissance Squadron in the b32s were flown by the 386 Bombardment Squadron said they didnt know anybody on the airplane to tony had never seen the b32 until the first day he got on one. He was amazed at the size of it. It was like the b24 product of the consolidated aircraft so they were similarities in the general look but it was gigantic , it was really a large airplane. So he and joe get on the airplane and fly eight hours to tokyo and then of course the attack happens. The irony is they discovered it before they got to tokyo that the cameras did not work. They couldnt see it in the amount and when theyd jerry rig away to put it in the mount the camera wouldnt work so they are flying back and forth over tokyo when they are attacked. Joe locharite the photographer had been crosstrained as a gunner said he and tony decided that they couldnt take pictures they would help the gunners on the airplane to spot incoming fighters said they were standing on opposite sides of the airplane and a fighter came in. The fire burst of machine gun that hit joe locharite in the leg. He took 78 bullets. Tony went to his aid lifted him up and put them on a fold down said t. Built into the side of the fuselage and was starting to give them first aid when a 20millimeter canon round came through the side of the airplane and not them all the way across the airplane and he bled out in a few minutes. Despite the help he was getting from other people on the crew. His death began was a tragedy but the radio message that went out from that airplane back to oh no a makes a large part of what i deal with in the book because the passage was flashed immediately to headquarters in manila and that was really, got to make a decision. The day before there had been an attack but no injuries. Today there was an attack fatality and other injuries because several of the other crew were mildly injured. So macarthur at that point could literally have restarted the air war against japan. The option is open to him ranged from everything from fairly lowlevel street and attacks by Navy Fighters on the airfields to seeking authorization to drop a third atomic bomb. As i mentioned earlier there was an invasion plan and depending on what sources you read had a third atomic bomb the necessary it would probably not have been ready for some weeks or possibly months to what would have happened in the meantime. The japanese maybe not surrendering, the United States and its allies continuing the air war against japan which would result of not only the allied casualties but probably fairly significant japanese casualties. So macarthur tech ed beating. He said okay the japanese are supposed to be sending surrender delegations by air from japan to manila to stop an american occupied island called u. Shema which is off okinawa. He said those two airplanes which were specially marked and painted white with green crosses he said if they take off then we know at least the japanese government is serious. If they dont take off and we know that the japanese have decided to continue the war and at that point he would have decided with authorization of course in washington how far to go in resuming the air campaign against japan and if that air campaign had gone on ultimately so with publicly the land invasion of japan. My father and my wifes father were scheduled to be in the first race of that invasion i cant honestly say that im sorry it didnt happen. It would have changed my life considerably probably so macarthur waited a minute, actually waited about 12 hours and lo and behold the aircraft took off from japan. It ultimately made it to manila. The interesting part though is that the 302nd air group pilots were still being renegade and they heard about this surrender flight and were going to attempt to shoot them down. Imagine what would have happened then. The two surrender planes carrying senior military commanders, diplomatic personnel, political personnel down in japan shut down by their own naval air forces. It would have been seen as a complete reputation of japans surrender agreement and triggered all these things. That is the crux of the story. A lot of the meat in this book is about the personalities involved. One of the people who played a big role in it is the Japanese Naval captain named fu tschida. You might recognize the name because he led the first wave of the japanese attack on pearl harbor in december 1941. He originally was going to support the coup and then realized to do so would be to invalidate everything he believed as a naval officer so he decided not to and he helped defuse the situation. There are people like one of the highest scoring japanese bases of world war ii. Of course hirohito is k